₩1,499,000
Starting price of the base M6 Mac mini
+68% from its 2024 launch price of ₩890,000
2026. 8. 25
APPLE DESKTOP · 2026. 8. 25
The era of the₩890,000 Mac mini is over
Apple announced the M6 and M5 Pro Mac mini alongside the M5 Max and M5 Ultra Mac Studio. This is a price analysis, not a performance review.
Performance clearly improved. One question remains: how much will the memory needed to use that performance cost?
₩5,030,000
M5 Pro Mac mini · 64GB · 512GB
+68% from ₩2,990,000 for the same previous-generation configuration
₩18,500,000
M5 Ultra Mac Studio · 256GB · 1TB
Last year, the same money bought 512GB · 4TB
Prices are from the Korean Apple Store, including VAT (checked Aug. 26, 2026).
01 — What was announced
Four desktop models replaced at once
Select a card to expand its configuration.
- Unified memory
- 16GB → up to 32GB
- Storage
- 256GB base storage
- Connectivity
- Thunderbolt 4 · Wi-Fi 7
The base model has a new price floor. Its 2024 launch price was ₩890,000.
- Unified memory
- 24GB → up to 64GB
- Storage
- 512GB base storage
- Connectivity
- Thunderbolt 5 · Wi-Fi 7
The discontinued 64GB option is back, but the 64GB configuration totals ₩5,030,000.
- Unified memory
- 36GB → up to 128GB
- Storage
- Not disclosed in the presentation
- Connectivity
- Not disclosed in the presentation
The base price is unchanged from the June 2026 increase. The premium is recovered through CTO memory and storage upgrades instead.
- Unified memory
- 96GB → up to 256GB
- Storage
- 1TB base storage
- Connectivity
- Not disclosed in the presentation
A 512GB configuration is scheduled separately for late October. The expected 768GB model was not released and was reportedly only tested.
Release schedule
- 8. 25Pre-orders in the U.S. and 29 other countries
- 8. 27Korean pre-orders — 10 a.m.Next
- 9. 22General availability
- Late OctoberSeparate M5 Ultra 512GB releasePlanned
Apple claims CPU performance up 40% over M4 and LM Studio LLM prompt processing up to 4.8× on M6 and 4× on M5 Pro. Each GPU core includes a Neural Accelerator.
02 — Base starting prices
Up to +68% in two years
Choose a model to compare three stages. The middle stage is the June 2026 increase.
After the 256GB model was discontinued in May 2026, the effective Mac mini price became ₩1,190,000, then rose to ₩1,349,000 in June. That is the chart's middle stage.
03 — How we got here
It did not happen in one jump
Fifteen months of shortages, discontinuations, increases, and a generation change. Select a date.
2026. 8. 25
Four new models announced
The price floor was reset. The Mac mini now starts at ₩1,499,000.
Memory suppliers are passing on enormous price increases. We can no longer absorb them.
The rapid expansion of AI data centers has caused demand for memory and storage to surge. We have never seen component prices rise this sharply in such a short period.
The company setting the price has itself identified memory as the cause.
05 — The reality of ₩18,500,000
Half the RAM for the same money
The bars show unified-memory capacity.
2025Estimate
512GBM3 Ultra · RAM 512GB · SSD 4TB
$10,499About ₩16,000,000
2026. 9. 22
256GBM5 Ultra · RAM 256GB · SSD 1TB
₩18,500,000$9,999 · maximum configuration at launch
Late Oct. 2026Estimate
512GBM5 Ultra · RAM 512GB · SSD 2TB
Price not announcedProjected at about ₩28,000,000
The 2025 configuration price is an estimate based on the U.S. price at the time. The ₩28,000,000 October figure is a projection, not a confirmed price. The base Mac Studio Ultra starts at ₩9,490,000 with 96GB · 1TB.
06 — A personal memory shock came first
Machines sold cheaply now cost three times as much
3×
Cost multiple to repurchase the PCs I owned
7 devices
Devices sold (4 Mac minis + 3 PCs)
32GB+
DDR5 capacity that had become standard
I sold four Mac minis used for io.net mining and three PCs I owned. All three PCs had 32GB of DDR5 RAM and at least a 1TB SSD; buying them back now would cost three times what I sold them for.
The regret is not that I sold them too cheaply. The AI boom came afterward; it stings to pay three times as much to replace machines that would still be useful.
- Predictions of a used base-model Mac mini sell-off during the OpenClaw boom were wrong — they traded at a premium instead
- Configurations with more RAM showed wider price gaps
- Initial stock of the new models is also expected to be limited. Pre-order with possible delivery delays in mind
07 — If this is what happened to one person
From the subscription era to the hardware era
- AI agents running 24/7 — an always-on machine beside the desk
- Demand for local LLMs and large diffusion models
- Even a smartphone is a computer — every device consumes memory
- Competition for supply across companies, institutions, and countries, not just individuals
Surging demand × constrained supply makes it harder to secure capable hardware and work. GPT and Claude subscriptions are not the whole cost. Enough hardware to use these models well — and run the apps built with them — is the new bottleneck.
08 — Three things the numbers show
Conclusion
01
Base models up 30–68% in two years — the end of friendly pricing
Mac mini: 89 → ₩1,499,000. Performance rises by percentages, but prices climb in steps. The Apple pricing many celebrated for a while is different this time.
02
Memory owns the price — the answer is GB, not benchmarks
64GB Mac mini: 299 → ₩5,030,000 (RAM upgrade cost 2.3×). At ₩18,500,000, you get 256GB RAM · 1TB. Absolute memory capacity is now the measure of value.
03
The practical option — M5 Pro 64GB Mac mini (₩5,030,000)
It is effectively the only answer for an at-home remote machine running AI agents 24/7. The return of the discontinued 64GB option is the announcement's one bright spot.
Korean pre-orders begin at 10 a.m. on Aug. 27. General availability is Sept. 22, with the M5 Ultra 512GB following separately in late October. If initial supply is tight, delivery may take several weeks.